National: Indigenous Win Injunction against Formation of National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) Due to Lack of Consultation

INPI launch event (@gob.mx)

On January 18th, the indigenous people of El Contadero, in the Mayoralty of Cuajimalpa in Mexico City, won an injunction that had been filed against the decree through which the Law was created that allowed the formation of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI in its Spanish acronym) last December.

This community argued that none of its members was summoned by the Congress of the Union or other instances of the State to participate in a prior, free and informed consultation according to the terms of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to give the consent to the Law for the creation of the INPI, something to which the Mexican State is obliged whenever it foresees legislative and administrative measures likely to affect them, and this having ratified several national instruments in the matter.

“The supposed ‘consultation’ of the Federal Legislative Power was regional, not private, and merely informative, abstract and diffuse, without adhering to the criteria of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” the indigenous people stressed, who also expressed that “the INPI Law is in dissonance (because it imposes and does not propose) with the stance set by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on July 1st, 2018 in terms that the dissenters remember now: we will listen to everyone, we will attend to everyone, we will respect everyone, but we will give preference to more humble and forgotten, especially indigenous peoples.” The Contadero demanded the regulation the indigenous rights and establishment bases of dialogue.